And a massive lack of knowledge about North America too. Monoculture? Pretty interesting when regional cultures and ethnic gens are rearing their heads in the US today. American Southerners and the GOP rump; American MidWest (albeit Mason-Dixon line has spread north significantly); etc., etc. There is a shared consumer culture, but that is a different matter. Its only monocultural if you count your diversity in cheeses.

I think intellectual dishonesty occupies, in the collective French mind, an important place. This has the unfortunate consequence of ensuring immunity to horse-sense or, as you would put it, mashed potatoes, 'gesunder Menschenverstand'.

Eh? The answer lies within your own comment: "when Greece needd to borrow money" - Q: where from? - from outside Greece of course, because the Greeks weren't saving, they weren't working hard or productive enough, nor were those who were "earning" paying any tax to pay for all the unproductive early-retiring civil servants! When the reality surfaced i.e. when the daylight penetrated the murky bogus books and the delusions of credit-worthiness were dispersed - the "evil markets" started to charge a higher "risk premium" - i.e. a price that reflected some of the raised risk of default (and that is now fact with the 50% write off). So, what reasonable man could blame the collective German taxpayer (or Merkel doing her duty on their behalf) from refusing to foot the bill for such profligate folly - in particular when he won't be given control of the spending! Oh how I'd love a blank cheque from a benefactor to fund an extravagant unaffordable life of the idle rich .... any offers? Impoverished Scot

If we were not to tolerate fraudulous members, and were to stick to respect for the law, than what is Italy doing in the Euro? They forged their figures as well to match the Euro joining criteria as well...

I completely agree. I do not understand though why is Germany going on with bail-outs for ill-managed economies.
I admit, The Netherlands is hypocrite: we promote austerity at home and cut expenses in an extremely harsh way on one hand and we hand over money to the South on the other.
Today Dutch media joined the club of the beggars saying that - after the Greek elections - Germany should go easier on greece. This while at home we cut expenses like we were Greece or Italy.
Our politicians are completely out of line with the public opinion. Everyone wants Holland to stop subsdizing the South, at least as long as we have to make sacrifices to pay for Italians, Spanish and Greeks.
As the German court of justice isd the only serious thing preventing the stupidity of Eurobonds, I was hoping German politics might stay a point of healthy economic policy.

That was a straw argument you just made, please stick to what I said instead of making things up.

You don't spend endlessly as you are trying to claim I said, you spend when needed.
When in a recession/depression you spend building infrastructure and national works projects as well as on social programs to help those getting trampled, this causes monetary circulation to occur creating demand for products creating business growth leading to more jobs to fill that demand leading to higher profits leading to more demand, jobs, growth, profits, etc.
Competition has nothing to do with it.
All economics are national unless you are a banker and they are in no way hurting at this time or any other. international corporations driving the drivel behind "competition" being the problem contribute very little to the bottom line of most workers. In most cases their actions and desires are detrimental to societies as a whole.

Austerity restricts the flow of currency, causing less demand, creating layoffs, creating less demand causing business shrinkage leading to more layoffs in a vicious cycle that ends in a total systemic collapse unless government steps in and does exactly what I described above, just as happened in the 30's.

Pay off the debt when the economy has recovered, borrow to make sure it can recover when it is down.
Where that went wrong is when consecutive excessively pro business governments decided they could keep borrowing when times were good (Republicans in the US are VERY guilty of this behaviour even though they scream about the Democratic Party as being tax and spend, do please look that up.) instead of paying down and now we are in a place where we need to borrow again.
That changes nothing though, either we borrow and build our way out or we continue to collapse and polarize by income until forced to just that: borrow and build our way out only this time from a significantly worse position.

Now if you are planning on responding don't use straw argument and fact free talk show talking points. You might score points in some backwater by doing that but you'll just look ignorant and foolish to anyone who has actually looked at the situation objectively.

Hitler would be plesed now that Frau Angela Merkel has the life support machine, for Euro, Mr Obama and Mr Cameron bullying and pleading, respectively,to turn it off.
Why?
Because SS Titanic loaded with $,£ debt will not make it, nine tenth of the iceberge about hit is underwater.

I think it's just as deep in Germany as in Greece. I'm not clever like you, but I sense that, unless Germany WAKES UP to the dangers, we will all pay a fearful price. I will not bore you with a learned disquisition on the subject; but, in the past fortnight, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the Self-Righteous Tendency holds sway in Berlin. Sadly, the Self-Righteous Tendency is very short-sighted, living up to Germany's self portrait as a land of thinkers and poets... and frightening the rest of us.